I am posting here in regards to the wounds that have been appearing on my arms when I sleep.
They’re not from bedbugs, I know that much for certain. The wounds are too big, and too odd. It doesn’t look like your usual insect bite. Instead it’s like something has scraped away a tiny patch of skin, layer by layer, until they drew blood.
I am hesitant to accept what I believe is the cause of these wounds. But maybe writing it all down will help. Maybe when I’ve got it all down, I’ll be able to see it’s all ridiculous. Maybe I won’t.
At the very least I’ll be able to get an outside perspective on this, because I certainly can’t discuss it with anyone in real life. I couldn’t look my mother in the eye and tell her my slugs are eating me.
About a year and a half ago, I found a youtube video about closed terrariums. I had been looking for a low-maintenance greenery solution for in my apartment, and this was perfect. I needed some life in my living space, but all my life I hadn’t been able to keep my house-plants alive, and I just didn’t have the money to keep replacing them.
So the next weekend I bought a big jar with a wide opening and went on a little excursion into the local park to gather moss and other plants. I’m not sure if that was entirely legal, but nothing in the park would die because I grabbed some moss and a few handfuls of dirt.
Back home I decorated my terrarium, and then put it on the corner of my desk. I watched it for a while, both proud of what I made, and a little disappointed it didn’t look as good as that Serpa Designs guy made his.
For some reason I thought that would be it, it would now just stand there, be pretty and give me something to look at when work was boring me to death. But soon enough I found the terrarium wasn’t as stagnant as I expected.
Every day new creatures would emerge from the soil. First were the pill-bugs, then when I looked closer I saw tiny spring-tails as well. I was… disconcerted when a big black fly buzzed around in there one day. But it died after a while, so it was all good.
Watching the insects became quite a big part of my day. I would watch them when I was bored, like I said, but even when my work was going well I felt my eyes drift to my terrarium more often than not. There was something captivating about this little world I’d created.
About three weeks in, I noticed something odd on the glass. At first I thought it was a tiny worm, but when I looked closer I saw it was a slug. A very tiny, almost translucent slug. It’s hair-thin eye stalks waved at me through the glass, and I knew I’d found my favourite.
The slugs, slugs because soon enough more of the tiny critters made themselves known, were just amazing to watch. They might look stupid, but they’re surprisingly intelligent. They have feelings too. I once saw one triumphantly waving the upper part of its body in the air once it reached the highest leaf in the terrarium.
Another thing people usually get wrong about them is that they’re slow. They aren’t. Relative to their body size they’re quite fast. They’re almost always the first to reach any food scraps I throw in, even beating out the pill-bugs.
I like to watch them eat. If I’m very quiet and hold my head close to the glass, I can even hear them chew.
I wonder if my skin makes the same sound…
No, it’s still ridiculous. Even when they were the size of a few grains of sand they never managed to squeeze past the cork sealing up the terrarium. They’re all much bigger now. Not like those huge monstrosities you sometimes find after rain. But most of them have reached a length of 2.5 or 3 cm now and I think they’ve reached their top size.
So you see how there’s no way they could get out of the terrarium, not to mention all the way to the other side of the room and into my bed.
Have you ever seen the mouth of a slug? I’ve seen plenty when they crawl over the glass. They’re weird. They don’t really bite, they scrape. Like a cheese-grater.
I’ve seen the holes they leave in fleshy pieces of fruit. They’re the same as the holes in my skin, there is no denying that.
But I don’t see how it’s possible.
My slugs aren’t even carnivorous! Not on live prey at least. I have seen them chew on the decaying husks of the pillbugs that have completely vanished from the terrarium…
You know what? I’m releasing them into the park. I don’t want to deal with this. If the wounds don’t go away I’ll- I don’t know, would the doctor recognise insect bites? Is that what they do? Or do you call pest control for that?
I don’t think writing this down helped at all. I’m just more confused.
Thanks for hearing me out I suppose.
